Quotes About Expression

I believe sometimes we aren't always in charge of everything that we do creatively. We submit to things as we're going on our own journey.

I mostly don't submit to talking about my work because I would like another talk about real life.

How many artists subscribe to the notion that creative success depends on input from the fickle muse or her modern avatar, mental illness? Probably very few.

Some people just don't subscribe to labels.

For other comics, it's about full-spectrum dominance, being on panel shows and having one-liners and being a good chat show guest and having a good seven minutes you can do on 'Live At The Apollo.' But I really think about these subsequent finished pieces, you know? And they don't always chop up well into one-liners and routines.

I think most people see drawing as subservient to the subject, a sort of meditation, a studying, a searching observation, in my case, for its own sake.

I just let the songs tell me what to do - they are my guides, and they are the boss. So I am subservient to the songs, and I let them tell me what to do. I don't judge them; I just write whatever comes to me.

Harassment doesn't just happen to 'social observers' and 'comedians' - women who express themselves publicly are reliably verbally attacked online and in person, not for their substance but for their form.

I have only two conditions to choose a project - content with substance and space to perform.

I'll never put out some super-dumbed-down music. It'll always have some substance to it.

There was a period when STP and I weren't making music - we weren't getting along very good at all. But I had my studio, so I was writing and recording a lot of music. But something told me not to put it out. It was all stream of consciousness; it was clever, but it didn't really have substance.

Sometimes I watch myself on 'The Hills' and I'm like, 'Whitney, could you, like, maybe pretend to be more interested, or say something of some substance instead of just giving looks?'

The lived experiences which could not find adequate scientific expression in the substance doctrine of rational psychology were now validated in light of new and better methods.

The substance of painting is light.

I think I enjoy playing human beings no matter the substance of their character.

Hip-hop is substance. It's social. It's science - that's what it started off as. We have fun, and we still having fun; ain't nothing wrong with fun, but we need that social, we need that substance, we need that science, and we need that spiritual.

If I could sew comedy and philosophy together, then I've done a good job. The primary goal is always going to be laughs and the secondary goal is always going to be saying something without it being a lecture. I think it's important to have substance for what you're saying.

I like to have songs with me that have substance. That's missing from a lot of today's music. You might hear a song with a catchy beat, but what's it about? It's not empowering or helping anyone.

I'd hate it to become style over substance, I'd hate people to start putting me in a magazine article about my style. I don't like dressing up in something I'm not necessarily comfortable in just to make it more of a show. I want the power to come from what I sing about and how I sing.

If people think of public art as something the public decides, it's impossible to make anything of substance.

Man, if I get a chance to speak on the microphone, I've got to say something somewhere in there. You know, I'm going to laugh and have fun, too, but something has to be said that has some substance, because this is a platform, and the power that we have with words and with this microphone is phenomenal.

I love words, but I also love finding out that there is a word for something that you've experienced but didn't know there was a word for. Like 'toothpack' - that is a word for when you eat biscuits or cookies and you get that annoying layer of chewed substance on your molars that you kind of have to pick out.

I try to make my clothing line an entry point for discovering the substance of the rest of my work.

What I have that's special in my music is substance. It's music that people can really relate to. I know I'm gonna rap something that somebody has already been through in their life, something that they will understand.